Freakonomics

Why does drug dealers still live with their moms? What makes a perfect parent? With data and analysis, this book tries to answer some unrelated random questions.

Freakonomics is divided into six chapters, each starting off with a question. On initial thoughts, the answers look obvious. Using tools to reliably asses tonnes of data, this books comes with interesting and often surprising answers. Rather than being a dull subject, economics here is applied to a variety of common topics with amusing results.

The book drives on a set of fundamental ideas:

Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life.

Conventional wisdom is often wrong

Dramatic effects often have distant, even subtle causes.

Experts use their informational advantage to serve their own agenda.

Knowing what to measure and how to measure it makes a complicated world much less so.

A must read if you are a curious cat and interested in knowing where have all the criminals gone.